2/09/2025

Thoughts On A Sunday

We received a little over 8 inches of snow overnight here at The Gulch. The folks on the other side of the lake got around 10 inches. As I write this (a little past 8am), our road has not yet been plowed. I can’t say about the main road as I haven’t been down that way yet. None of this means that I won’t be heading out shortly to start shoveling the driveway, digging out the trusty RAM 1500, and breaking out the roof rake to pull snow off the edge of the roof. In other words, taking care of the usual post-snow chores.

At least I don’t have to worry about having to go anywhere today so there’s no rush to get things done. Church services were canceled (though our church is still holding online services) as the town and state highway crews are still out plowing.

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If you want to see a perfect example of “Get woke. Go broke,” all one has to do is look at the debacle of how Anheuser-Busch took one of their most popular brands – Bud Light – and destroyed it by going woke and in-your-face by using the most inappropriate spokesperson they could find - Dylan Mulvaney – a transgender woman who helped turn off a lot of Bud Light drinkers.

Bud Light is still trying to make up with the customer base it alienated on April 1, 2023. On that day, a brand that had been the top-selling beer in America for over two decades launched a social media campaign that would rock its customers, and not in a good way. Starring a transgender activist, Dylan Mulvaney, it celebrated Mulvaney’s first year of “girlhood.” Bud Light even sent Mulvaney a personalized can to mark this milestone date in Mulvaney’s transition from biological male to transgender woman, which millions had already followed on Instagram and TikTok.

This was not an April Fools’ Day prank as some believed, but a serious effort by the world’s largest beer company, Anheuser-Busch InBev, to “rebrand” its product.

For Bud Light, the consequences were no laughing matter. Consumers immediately recoiled and targeted the beer with one of the largest boycotts in recent history. Bud Light sales declined 11 percent that week compared to the previous year. By April 15, 2023, sales were down 21 percent. In the ensuing months, the company shed billions of dollars of shareholder value, laid off hundreds of employees across the Anheuser-Busch ecosystem, damaged its reputation, and plunked itself in the middle of a highly contentious political issue. Almost every Anheuser-Busch stakeholder—wholesalers, employees, customers, and shareholders—lost trust in the company.

Why anyone at A-B or InBev thought this was a good idea baffles me. It’s as if they ignored the demographics of their customers and were aiming to gain customers in another demographic that was a fraction of the size of their existing one. Anyone with even a inkling of marketing knowledge would know that is a suicidal move. Did they think the move would merely add that ‘woke’ demographic to their customer base without offending their existing customer base?

I guess so...and they learned the “Get woke. Go Broke,” lesson the hard way.

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I have to admit I like this take on DOGE.

DOGE has forced democrats into the position of defending waste, fraud and abuse.

Looking at just where taxpayers dollars are going via USAID has been eye-opening. Yes, much of the funds for USAID are doing what they’re supposed to be doing. But way too much is going to people and organizations and businesses that have absolutely nothing to do with USAID’s purpose, including some that feed funds to terrorist organizations. How can Democrats justify this?

It’s even worse with with the entrenched departments, bureaus, and agencies where the graft, payoffs, and “no show” jobs eat up hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars, if not a trillion or more. Maybe if DOGE had been grafted onto the Inspector General’s office which would have possibly given it subpoena power.

Our federal government is fat, is wasting tax money on things no one but the bureaucrats, lobbyists, and grifters want or need. It’s time to clean house. And if you think we should leave it to Congress all that means is that nothing will get done, it will cost a couple of hundred billion dollars to get nothing done, and nothing will change...other than to get worse.

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To anyone that has been paying attention this is no surprise. To those with a green scam...er...agenda to ram down people’s throats it is anathema.

New study Points To Hunga Tonga Eruption As Cause Of Global Temperature Spike.

In January 2022, a massive underwater volcano called Hunga Tonga suddenly erupted and shot so much water into the upper atmosphere that levels in the stratosphere rose suddenly by at least 10%. It was a genuine one in 100, even 200 year event and was reasonably expected to produce temporary weather changes around the globe. Sure enough, subsequent temperatures showed a 0.3-0.4°C upward spike. Needless to say, the Net Zero fanatics claimed the rise as their own and blamed it on humans controlling the climate by increasing the trace gas carbon dioxide. Today the Daily Sceptic can give wider publicity to sensational recent findings that suggest Hunga Tonga was the main culprit in producing the recent spike. The scientists directly link a dramatic cooling in the upper atmosphere of between 0.5-2°C to Hunga Tonga. It is generally held that there is an anti-correlation between the lower and upper atmosphere and cooling at the top produces warming at the bottom due to a number of complex atmospheric processes.

--snip--

This is dramatic stuff. It appears to promote Hunga Tonga as the prime cause in explaining the recent spike in temperatures. Indeed it could be concluded that the temperature rise should have been a little higher – and higher even still if the effects of a recent strong El Niño natural oscillation are included. Satellite observations, confirmed by computer analysis, shows stratospheric cooling of 0.5°C to 1°C in the middle and upper stratosphere during 2022 through middle 2023, followed by stronger reductions of 1°C to 2°C in the mesosphere after the middle of 2023, note the scientists. Last year, two distinguished atmospheric scientists observed the anti-correlation between the higher and lower atmosphere and suggested the lower stratosphere cooled by approximately two degrees per degree of warming nearer the surface. Where the troposphere has been anomalously warming, the lower stratosphere has been anomalously cooling “and vice versa”, note the scientists.

I found it interesting that a volcanic eruption that put 160 million tons of water into the atmosphere, thereby increasing the water vapor content of the atmosphere by up to 13% (depending upon which figures with which you agree), was minimized by the climate change cultists as “insignificant” and having little if any effect on global temperatures and precipitation.

It has also been devoutly ignored by the media since it doesn’t fit The Narrative and therefore must be wrong.

And so it goes.

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As an aside I have been looking into the failure of my laptop to boot, wondering if it had been seen by others after the latest software update. I have found a couple that reported a similar problem and it turns out they were using similar hardware to mine, so I have to wonder if it is some kind of hardware incompatibility. I wouldn’t think that would be the case considering I have been using the laptop for years and I have seen no such incompatibilities before.

So it looks like I will need to reload the OS to see if I can regain function, something I will deal with next weekend.

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And that’s the news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where we’re still cleaning up the snow, the skiers and snowmobilers are making the best of the new snow, and where Monday is returning yet again.

Bailey

I delayed posting this for a while but I wanted to share this news.

Two weeks ago we lost a member of the WP Feline Contingent, Bailey, a sweet and gentle giant. While we only had the privilege of knowing and loving him for not quite a year and a half, he affected us greatly and was a great companion for Pip, the last member of the original WP Feline Contingent. He took ill suddenly and the veterinarians down at the Capital Area Veterinary Emergency Service in Concord, NH diagnosed him with a pleural effusion which made it increasingly difficult for him to breathe. His prognosis was terminal and he wasn’t going to last out the morning.

I did what I had to do for him even though it was a heartrending decision.

He died as I held him in my arms, telling him that I loved him and what a good boy he’d been. I told him that I would miss him but that someday we would be together again and that it was time for him to cross the Rainbow Bridge.

It was this short video about the loss of a beloved cat that I saw on Facebook a little while ago that prompted me to finally post about Bailey’s loss. While the cat in the video does not resemble our beloved Bailey, the sentiment is the same.

2/08/2025

Uh-Oh

My usual Saturday post died aborning as the Official Weekend Pundit Laptop is having problems. It seems that after a software update it will not boot to the login screen. Not that it stops me from posting, but I hadn't tried booting the laptop since I installed the update late last Sunday. (It did require a restart to take effect, but it has never been an issue in the past if I shut down the laptop and used the next start-up as the 'reboot'.)

Fortunately I do have other computers I can use but I didn't realize the laptop wasn't going to boot until about 30 minutes ago. I can fix it but it will take reloading the OS and that won't take place until tomorrow when I have the time. Downloading the OS, burning an image onto a USB key, and then booting to the USB key to load the OS doesn't seem to be something I should undertake at 10PM on a Saturday evening.

My usual Thoughts On A Sunday will be posted as I will use the Official Weekend Pundit Desktop Computer to craft it.

Oh, and it's snowing to beat the band, just as the Weather GuysTM promised.

Friday Funny (Saturday Edition) - Rodney Dangerfield

Yup. I screwed up. I forgot that yesterday was Friday, particulrly in light of a meeeting that was scheduled for Thursday took place on Friday because of the snow we had Thursday, leaving me to think that it was Thursday. Mea culpa

2/02/2025

Thoughts On A Sunday

It was yet another chilly night here at the lake, with the low hitting -10ºF and sitting at -2ºF as I write this (8am). At least there isn’t much wind so we don’t have wind chill to deal with.

We had snow into yesterday morning and we saw about 5 inches here at The Gulch. It wasn’t heavy so it was easy to shovel and to rake off of the roof, but it took almost 2 hours to get everything cleaned off including the trusty RAM 1500. We have more snow coming tonight, but only 1 to 3 inches are expected and it will end well before sunrise. I know what I’ll be doing tomorrow morning before breakfast…

Two things the chilly weather has helped bring about are two annual events we look forward to, the first being the New England Pond Hockey Classic on the ice at Meredith Bay which finishes later today and the Great Meredith Rotary Ice Fishing Derby which takes place next weekend.

Another thing with the snowfall we’ve had is that snowmobile trails are open!

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Note: Looking at what I wrote below I realized that this is really a “Why Doesn’t This Surprise Me” edition of TOAS. So be it.

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This doesn’t surprise me in the least.

79% of Americans say that biological men should not compete in women’s sports, according to an NYT/Ipsos survey.

As Glenn Reynolds comments:

Wokeness was always an elite preference only, rejected by the masses and maintained only through bullying and shaming tactics that no longer work.

HehTM.

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This doesn’t surprise me either. In fact, I saw this coming a long time ago and all time has done is prove me right.

By way of DOGE (Department of Government Efficiency) comes this revelation:

This is the split of administrators vs. teaching staff at the top 25 endowed universities.

We are investing in bureaucracy over actual education.

One must remember that the main function of a bureaucracy is to perpetuate itself and expand its power. Whether you are talking about a government bureaucracy or educational bureaucracy, it has the same purpose.

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Here’s yet another thing that wasn’t surprising, that being someone on the Left blaming Trump for the mid-air collision at Reagan National Airport. All this proves to me is that the accuser is close-minded and woefully ignorant of how things work when it comes to the hiring of air traffic controllers.

A prominent Democrat, Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D-TX), is blaming President Donald Trump for the recent devastating plane crash in Washington, D.C., suggesting that his action of freezing the hiring of federal employees played a key role in the tragedy. Crockett pointed to Trump’s political agenda, particularly in the aviation industry, as a contributing factor, arguing that the crash could have been prevented if stricter oversight had been in place. While the investigation is still ongoing, the remarks have sparked a fierce political debate, with Trump blaming the deadly crash on the left’s DEI initiatives, which hired based on gender and racial diversity rather than merit.

--snip--

However, the White House’s Rapid Response social media account put Crockett in her place.

“Wrong. Federal air traffic controllers are EXEMPT from the hiring freeze. Stop lying,” the account wrote on X.

This follows a Squad member's dramatic reaction after CNN’s Scott Jennings reported that Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass requested the city appoint an entire LGBTQ leadership team for the Los Angeles Fire Department. He questioned how much it matters what color the firefighters are when someone’s house is burning down.

In response, Crockett suggested hiring unqualified people of color over qualified white men is more important.

So, she’s a racist and thinks people should be hired or not hired based solely on the color of their skin? I have to wonder if she has a KKK member somewhere in her family tree? (Yes, I know she’s black, but we all know that doesn’t mean anything, particularly after so many generations.)

So she thinks the way to combat racism is to use racism as a means of doing so? She has obviously been binge-drinking the hypocrite Kool-Aid.

But it still comes down to how air traffic controllers are hired and trained. It isn’t like they are hired on Monday and are sitting in an air traffic control center or control tower two weeks later. It takes months of classroom training and years of hands-on experience to become an effective air traffic controller, DEI not withstanding.

Not everyone who is hired makes it through the training, either because they do not have the ability or the mental and emotional fortitude to fill that role. Most people don’t have what it takes to be an air traffic controller as it can be a very stressful profession. In fact, the attrition rate for air traffic control trainees runs 40-50%. If you start limiting the people that are hired per Rep. Jasmine Crockett’s demand, will that attrition rate climb?

Of course it will.

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Here’s yet another story that doesn’t surprise me in the least.

I have stopped trying to figure out why movie makers are working so hard to destroy themselves. I have better things to do with my time. But it looks like their latest attempt at destroying themselves is working. It seems their latest movie remake of the Three Musketeers, is a woke disaster.

The Disney formula of mixing a beloved classic with moonbattery to create an unwatchable remake does not make money. Yet the French decided to give it a try, wokifying The Three Muskateers into Toutes Pour Une. The result is as you might expect:

The heroine is no longer d’Artagnan, but Sara, a young girl who is shocked to discover that the three musketeers charged with looking after the Queen of France are in fact… women.

The Three Musketeers are no longer Frenchmen. They aren’t even Frenchwomen…

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Audience response: With just 1271 admissions for 564 screenings, the film maintained a very respectable average of 2 spectators per screening.

Anyone who sat through it was probably a movie critic. But the important thing is to strike a blow against the patriarchy, not to entertain the unwoke masses.

What makes this even worse is that this disaster of a movie was subsidized with with €10 million of French taxpayer money.

This is yet another example of “Get woke. Go broke.”

You have to wonder if these woke folks will ever realize the difference between their beliefs, as delusional as they may be, and the harsh reality of life and human nature.

Probably not.

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Here’s yet another thing that was no surprise to me: Electric school buses aren’t all they’re cracked up to be. Even big EVs aren’t “Ready For Primetime”.

It appears that the electric school buses purchased for use by the Yarmouth, Maine school system by the Maine Department of Education don’t work.

The administration of now-former President Joe Biden tried to bankroll the use of electric school buses at government schools across the country.

But as the electric buses continue to have massive reliability issues, some schools regret taking the federal handouts and now want help from the Environmental Protection Agency to get themselves out of the program.

--snip--

There are at least six districts reporting massive problems with Lion Electric school buses they bought through the federal program.

The two electric buses received by Yarmouth Schools have been with the district for a year and a half, but they have only been used a few times because of functionality issues, per WGME-TV.

“We are trying to work with Lion to have those buses replaced, or to receive compensation for those buses, but really not making much progress at this point and time,” Yarmouth Superintendent Andrew Dolloff said in comments to the station.

“We run them for a day or so and then we get error messages about engine failures or battery failures,” he described.

Dolloff reported difficulties in communicating with a representative from Lion Electric, which does not have any staffers in the area to handle bus maintenance.

“We are not able to run them until those messages are cleared,” Dolloff added.

School systems need reliable transportation and it appears these electric buses are anything but. That these buses were part of a federal program that used $1 billion taxpayer dollars to buy 5,000 electric buses as a means of pushing Biden’s EV agenda makes it even worse. Those buses cost $200,000 each while a new diesel powered school bus costs approximately half that, and the diesel buses actually work. They are made from long-proven designs and have shown decades of reliable service.

But wait, there’s more!

Even beyond the inflated cost, the poor reliability of these electric buses points to the folly of trying to manipulate the free market for political reasons.

While electric vehicles are advancing in their sophistication, they still have reliability issues that do not affect gas-powered alternatives, such as the fact that they do not charge as easily in the winter.

That is, of course, a relevant factor for Maine, which receives quite a bit of winter weather.

Indeed. When the temperatures are below zero like they were this past evening, charging electric vehicles is problematic. In Maine, just like here in New Hampshire, it gets below freezing from November to March and can get below zero from late December through late February. Of course it doesn’t matter if the buses aren’t functioning even if the batteries are charged.

These are our tax dollars at work.

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And that’s the news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where the ski areas are busy, there’s more snow coming, and Monday is coming around once again.

2/01/2025

LED Headlights - A Bane Or Boon?

I have found LED headlights to be a problem. How about you?

They are a lot brighter than the ‘old fashioned’ incandescent headlights, even the halogens. Then add in the blue-white glare and they become annoying, if not dangerous to oncoming traffic. When I drive at night I have to wear the yellow “night driving” glasses that do a pretty good job of reducing the LED headlight dazzle. I am not the only one who wears them for that reason. Fortunately they aren’t expensive. But that it is necessary to wear them in order to be able to drive at night is a pain.

The amount of light LED headlights provide do make it easier for the drivers of vehicles equipped with them to see the road at night even though they do tend to blind oncoming drivers. This is an ongoing problem and it’s only going to get worse.

Is there a solution to this problem in the offing?

Now most new cars have the much stronger LED lights. How much stronger? Well, the brightness of light is measured in lumens. A halogen bulb puts out about 1,000 lumens. An LED bulb puts out about 4,000 lumens. Some aftermarket LED bulbs, many illegal, advertise an eye melting 12,000 lumens!

Schieldrop says those aftermarket bulbs are a huge issue, but overall LEDs offer a big advantage. "It's a double-edged sword," he said. "The reality is very bright headlights are actually much safer. It significantly improves how much can see on the road."

The size of vehicles is another factor. The three bestselling vehicles in America are pickup trucks and trucks, really all cars, have gotten much bigger and taller.

--snip--

A remedy might exist in Europe where many cars use advanced adaptive headlights. Also nicknamed "smart headlights."

AAA research found they illuminate the road 86% better than what we have in the U.S. without the glare. Basically, these smart headlights make about 5,000 adjustments per second to curve light around the part of the road already lit up by an oncoming car. So, there's no direct beam in the face.

Craig Fitzgerald, an auto writer for many different publications, says those lights being used in Europe are a huge improvement. "So that's the idea with the smart headlights is they dip away a little bit and that is enough to keep it from really bothering your eyes," Fitzgerald said.

But we have been stuck with our "not as smart" headlights because way back in 1967, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration ruled all cars in the U.S. must have separate high beam and low beam bulbs.

"So that really negates these smart headlights. You have to have these specific headlights for the United States. So, we are behind Europe and the rest of the world by 10 years at this point," Fitzgerald said.

Two years ago, the NHTSA finally gave the green light to smarter headlights lights but no carmaker in the U.S. has them yet and the switch could take years.

I have seen demonstrations of the smart headlights and it’s a solution that makes sense. It would certainly reduce the issues with LED headlights blinding oncoming drivers. I don’t know if it would eliminate the need for the yellow night driving glasses as the blue-white LED dazzle may still be a problem here and there.

I must admit that I have been tempted to change the halogen bulbs in the headlights of the trusty RAM 1500 to LEDs. Of course that would mean that now my pickup would become a source of the blinding glare other drivers would have to deal with. But that was not the reason I balked at making the change. Instead, it was the cost as it could cost up to $800 to make the change. Replacement halogen bulbs cost just under $40 each.

I have considered replacing the fog light bulbs with LEDs because they cost a heck of a lot less and they do throw a lot more light, but the pattern is much closer to the ground and provides a lot of light along the sides of the road. I don’t use them often, but when I do I am glad I have them.

In the end, I hope the smart headlights do become more common even though I know they are more expensive than regular headlights, be they halogens or LEDs.